Ravenna

Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Ravenna was a major city of Italy during the antiquity and the Middle Ages, once serving as capital of the Western Roman Empire (from 402 to 476) and the Ostrogoths (476-540). In 2014, Ravenna had a population of 158,784 people.

History
The name "Ravenna" comes from the word "Rasenna", the endonym of the Etruscans. Thessalians, Etruscans, and Umbrians inhabited Ravenna at times in antiquity, and Ravenna was conquered by the Roman Republic from the Gauls in 326 BC. Ravenna used to touch the Adriatic Sea, and it served as an important center of the Roman Empire's imperial fleet under Augustus. The emperor Trajan built an aqueduct in Ravenna in the early 2nd century, and by 402 AD it was home to 50,000 people and considered to be a strategically-located city; it was perceived as being impenetrable. That year, emperor Honorius moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire from Rome to Ravenna in hopes of forestalling any barbarian invasions, but King Alaric and the Vandals simply bypassed the city en route to Rome in 410 CE, sacking Rome without much opposition. In 476 CE, Romulus Augustus was deposed as Roman emperor by the Heruli mercenary Odoacer, ending the Roman Empire.

In 493 CE, Theoderic the Great and the Ostrogoths conquered Ravenna from Odoacer, and in 540 the city would be conquered by the Byzantine Empire during Justinian's reconquest of the old Western Roman Empire. In 751, Aistulf of Lombardy conquered Ravenna from the Byzantines, but King Pepin the Short of West Francia conquered Ravenna at the behest of Pope Stephen II, and Ravenna was granted to the Papal States. Ravenna was ruled directly by the pope, and it was therefore a base for the Guelphs during the wars with the pro-Holy Roman Empire Ghibellines in the 12th to 16th centuries. From 1218 to 1240, the House of Traversari ruled Ravenna, and from 1240 to 1248 it was ruled by an imperial vicar, from 1248 to 1275 by the Traversari once more, from 1275 to 1440 by the House of Polenta, from 1440 to 1509 by the Republic of Venice, from 1509 to 1796 by the Papal States, by France from 1796 to 1814, the Papal States once more from 1814 to 1859, and then by Italy after 1859. Ravenna suffered very little damage during World War II, being liberated by the British on 5 December 1944, and it had a population of 158,784 people in May 2010.